Florida’s First Lady invests quietly in investment firm that mirrors governor’s old company

Florida First Lady Ann Scott doesn’t talk publicly about where she invests the many millions of dollars in assets her husband, Governor Rick Scott, has transferred to her since his election in 2010. She doesn’t have to because Florida’s public officials, including the governor, are not required to disclose a spouse’s assets.

But Securities and Exchange Commission records reveal one place she’s sunk a lot of money is an obscure “family” investment firm that boasts $160 million under management and operates using the online name Scott Capital Partners.

Scott Capital looks a lot like a corporate doppelganger of Richard L. Scott Investments, the governor’s private equity firm where he made millions for himself and his family putting together big-money investment deals.

SEC records show that three men who worked for Gov. Scott when he ran Richard L. Scott Investments now operate Scott Capital, which describes itself using the same three-sentence paragraph once used by RLSI. Scott Capital’s online portfolio boasts more than a half-dozen large investments actually made years ago by RLSI.

One of those investments was Solantic, which operated a chain of walk-in clinics. According to media reports, Gov. Scott transferred his $62 million investment in Solantic to his wife’s revocable trust amid allegations of conflict of interest shortly before taking office. Mrs. Scott reportedly sold the family’s stake in Solantic in June 2011.

Another Scott Capital feature that makes it look a lot like the RLSI organization run by Rick Scott is that RLSI’s law firm – Bradley Arant Boult Cummings – is now Scott Capital’s law firm.

That legal link also ties Scott Capital back to another Rick Scott venture because partner Stephen T. Braun, based in the firm’s Nashville office, was general counsel to Columbia/HCA Healthcare when Gov. Scott led that company. Braun and his firm have represented RLSI and Rick and Ann Scott in various stock transactions.

HIDING CONNECTIONS

While lineage with a sitting governor could be a valuable asset, Scott Capital has gone out of its way to obscure its connections to Florida’s governor and First Lady.

Online biographies of Scott Capital’s three principals – Gregory David Scott, Andrew K. Maurer and F. Bradley Scholtz – don’t mention that they once worked for Gov. Scott at RLSI. Instead, the bios each say they started with Scott Capital in the years the men actually began at RLSI.

The governor and Mrs. Scott would not be interviewed about Scott Capital, and the governor’s office did not answer written questions about the family’s relationship with the investment advisor firm based in Rowayton, Connecticut.

While Scott Capital doesn’t capitalize on its heritage, its website does not identify the firm’s own full legal name: G. Scott Capital Partners LLC. That omission is an impediment to obtaining public regulatory information about the firm and is odds with the company’s own statements on its annual registration applications to the SEC.

On those forms, the SEC requires investment advisers to disclose both their full legal name and the “name under which you primarily conduct your advisory business.” The name Scott Capital Partners isn’t listed on the company’s SEC filings.

The SEC disclosure forms are more forthcoming about the backgrounds of Gregory Scott, Maurer and Scholtz, stating that each worked for Richard L. Scott Investments LLC until 2012, around the time that name was shed and Scott Capital Partners was incorporated.

“Yes, it was in that time frame,” Scholtz said when asked when the name Richard L. Scott Investments was dropped and Scott Capital Partners was formed. Scholtz, who originates and evaluates private equity deals, referred further questions to Managing Director Gregory Scott.

Gregory Scott indicated his name was used to reflect his majority interest in the firm, which records show was organized as a limited liability company in Delaware in November 2012.

‘NOT RELATED TO RICK’

“I have the same last name. I’m not related to Rick, but that’s all I want to say. Why would I speak to a reporter?” he said.

SEC records say Gregory Scott owns 50 to 75 percent of the holding company that owns Scott Capital. Tally 1, a limited liability company incorporated in Delaware in November 2012 and controlled by the First Lady, owns the rest. The Frances Annette Scott Revocable Trust, which pumped $11.3 million into Gov. Scott’s 2010 campaign, owns a controlling interest in Tally 1.

Gregory Scott described the First Lady, an interior decorator by trade, as a “passive investor.”

The governor’s office did not respond to written questions asking whether Gov. Scott has an ownership interest in Tally 1. When Gregory Scott was asked if Gov. Scott was involved with Scott Capital he said, “That’s enough” and concluded the interview.

Gov. Scott’s lawyers told the Commission on Ethics last year that the governor placed all of his assets in a blind trust in 2011 to eliminate conflicts of interest by “blinding” himself to the nature of his enormous investments in stocks, bonds and other entities. The First Lady’s assets were not included and nothing in Florida law prevents the First Lady from telling her husband how she is investing the assets he gave her or prevents him from suggesting to her how she should invest her assets.

In March, BrowardBullldog.org reported that Florida’s 2013 blind trust law has proved ineffective in preventing public disclosure of the governor’s personal riches due to federal disclosure requirements regarding large stock transactions.

This year alone, through various entities including the blind trust, the Scotts made more than $20 million selling shares in two publicly traded companies, Argan and NTS communications. Argan’s principal subsidiary, power plant builder Gemma Power Systems, does business in Florida.

TRUSTEE IS EX-PARTNER, EMPLOYEE

A subsequent story reported that Alan Bazaar, chief executive of Hollow Brook Wealth Management which serves as the independent trustee of the governor’s $72 million blind trust, worked for Scott at RLSI for more than a decade prior to his run for governor. The governor and Bazaar also were partners a decade ago in a lucrative investment in a Deerfield Beach computer security company called Cyberguard.

Scott Capital reported to the SEC on March 27 that it provides management services for family investment accounts, a start-up private equity fund and an unspecified number of limited liability companies that facilitate large investments in single companies. The firm is paid a percentage of assets under management, performance fees and is reimbursed by clients for overhead.

As of Dec. 31, Scott Capital said it managed $160 million in client assets, most of it from a handful of high net worth individuals. Its public filings don’t identify them, but Scott Capital’s history, structure, ownership and portfolio indicate they include members of Gov. Scott’s family.

Scott Capital’s largest managed asset is RLSI-CSP Capital Partners, a limited liability company that SEC paperwork identifies as a private fund with a gross asset value of $120 million.

Gov. Scott created RLSI-CSP Capital Partners in 2005 in order to purchase Continental Structural Plastics, an Ohio-based automotive and air conditioning company supplier. Financial records made public last summer state that Gov. Scott put his ownership units in RLSI-CSP into his blind trust in 2011, valuing his stake at $14.2 million.

There is other overlap between the portfolios of Scott Capital and Gov. Scott’s blind trust. Both have reported large stakes in Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, a Colorado-based drug store chain, and Strike and Spare family entertainment and bowling centers of Tennessee.

A NEW DEAL

Scott Capital’s lone deal since Mrs. Scott’s investment is the May 2013 acquisition of of Valterra Products. The deal was accomplished using two limited liability corporations that Scott Capital’s SEC filings valued at $11.5 million. Valterra, headquartered in California, manufactures fluid control products for recreational vehicles, pools and spas and other industries.

Around the same time that Richard L. Scott Investments LLC employees moved to Scott Capital Partners, RLSI dropped the governor’s name and changed its name to Columbia Collier Management.

RLSI’s corporate history prior to 2007, the year of its incorporation in Florida, is unclear. The venture capital firm with offices in Naples, Stamford, Connecticut and New York City, said it was established in 1997, yet a search of corporate records in more than a half dozen other states where Scott is known to have done business turned up no record that RLSI was previously incorporated.

Asked about that, the governor’s office did not respond.

It wasn’t until last year that First Lady Ann Scott began signing RLSI’s annual reports. This February, the company changed it name to that of the company that has managed it since 2007 – Columbia Collier Management.

Among Columbia Collier Management’s affiliates is another limited liability company set up by businessman Richard L. Scott in 2007, Columbia Collier Properties. Today, that entity is the registered owner of the Cessna Citation jet that Gov. Rick Scott uses to travel around Florida and elsewhere at his own expense, but with little public accountability.

The asset list for the governor’s blind trust does not mention Richard L. Scott Investments. It does, however, list ownership units in Columbia Collier Management that Scott valued at $2.2 million in April 2011.

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